MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

6/15 Marmol back as closer

The Cubs needed to stabilize the bullpen and have decided Carlos Marmol is back as the closer. He made it interesting on Friday against the Red Sox. With one out, Ryan Sweeney singled, and Mike Aviles reached on an error. One out later, Marmol walked Scott Podsednik to load the bases. Sveum came out for a chat.

“It wasn’t a lot of nice things — nice words, I should say,” Sveum said of his conversation.

“He didn’t tell me good things,” Marmol said, laughing. “I appreciate what he said to me. He said, ‘Throw strikes, I don’t want to take you out of the game. Let’s go.'”

Marmol got Dustin Pedroia to hit into a force at third to end the game. It was his first save since May 2 and third of the season. Rookie Rafael Dolis had taken over the duties but struggled with his command and has been pitching at Triple-A Iowa since the end of May. Since then, James Russell and Shawn Camp have shared the workload.

“We told [Marmol] he’s done everything we’ve asked him to do and his side sessions and his work and he’s been throwing his fastball more,” Sveum said.

The problem has been fastball command, or the lack of.

“He has at least some conviction with his fastball now,” Sveum said. “It’s not, ‘I’m going to waste it and go back to my slider.'”

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2 Comments

Well, we have heard that everyone is subject to a trade. A minor league reliever would not be as attractive as one in the bigs. Who needs a closer like Marmol? That should stump most of us for a while.

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